


Mirror Mirror

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack and Angst, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29983416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: An alternate universe where Goddard finds a universe-hopping alien artifact that, for some reason, only works for Elias Selberg and his lab manager, Rosemary.(Or, a snippet of something I wrote like two years ago entirely because the idea of Corporate Bitch Rosemary encountering one of the alternate versions of herself and wanting to fight her was hilarious to me, which may or may not get more chapters where she wants to fight other alternate versions of herself.)
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character
Kudos: 2





	Mirror Mirror

Elias turned a corner in this city that he had never visited before, in this world or any other, and for just a moment, he thought he was looking at Rosemary.

But no, a second glance disabused him of that notion; even if Rosemary were not off trying to find out if this reality had any information or inventions that Cutter might find useful, the similarities were only superficial. This woman was the right height, and had Rosemary’s fat, pleasant figure, but her hair was a great poof of natural curls, streaked with grey, as far from Rosemary’s regimented wig as possible. And Rosemary would never go out in public in trousers, in a baggy sweater, in flats. Perhaps for a day of cleaning her apartment and doing laundry, yes, but out on a crowded city street like this? She would not be caught dead.

And then the woman turned, and caught sight of him in return, and a beaming smile lit her un-made-up face, and Elias saw that it _was_ Rosemary. The smile faltered almost immediately, but Elias was still stunned by it, continued staring at her open-mouthed.

Rosemary laughed, not unkindly. “I'm so sorry! Didn't mean to hit you with the high beams. I just thought you were my husband for a moment.”

Her voice was Rosemary’s voice, and her smile was Rosemary’s smile, and yet… how could this be Rosemary?

“I… ah. It is fine,” he managed to stammer out. “Perhaps I could help you locate him?”

“That would be lovely,” said Rosemary, beaming again. “Our daughter’s college graduation starts in…” she looked down at her watch. “Ouf. Half an hour.”

“What does he look like?”

Rosemary sized him up. “Quite remarkably like you, to be honest. Same height, though he's a little heavier than you, I think. Same nice cheekbones, too. Dark hair, though I suppose he's going grey now, and balding a little, poor dear,” said Rosemary with a roguish grin. “Oh, and he answers to Dmitri.”

“Who is it who answers to Dmitri?” asked Elias’s own voice from behind Rosemary, and there he was, a strange mirror of Elias, dark-haired and a little pudgy, throwing an affectionate arm over Rosemary’s shoulders and leaning down to press a kiss to her cheek. “I hope you were not intending to replace me with this gentleman, lyubov moya.”

Rosemary laughed again. “I was considering it. Where have you been?”

The man—Dmitri… no, himself, perhaps as Elias might have been—drew himself up excitedly. “Ah! Was walking past jewelry store, and saw this.” He pulled a small box out of his pocket, and Elias caught a glimpse of a silvery chain and some sort of trinket.

“Oh, it's a sword!” exclaimed Rosemary.

Dmitri grinned. “Perfect for our little warrior princess, da?” he said.

Rosemary nodded. The two of them had turned away from Elias and towards each other, obviously caught up in their own little world, a world that contained only each other, though Rosemary had taken the time to shoot him a small smile and mouth the words “thank you” before her husband and his purchase claimed all of her attention.

And then they turned and walked away, and Elias watched, his heart aching.

Before he had a chance to consider his actions, he was following them down the street at what he hoped was a safe distance. They didn't seem to notice him, though he was cautious to keep far enough back that it might seem a coincidence that he was traveling the same direction as them.

He ought to be meeting up with his Rosemary soon, Elias reflected. Though perhaps he had time. No doubt she was off buried in a library’s card index or bullying a librarian into giving her access to the microfiche machines, and he would have to use the signal on her locator beacon to hunt her down. But right now, he was more curious about this than about any other potential differences there might be between this universe and their own.

He followed this universe’s Rosemary and Dmitri down the sidewalk and into a building. He had worried that the graduation might require tickets to get in, but it did not. It seemed to be a specialized ceremony, just for those students receiving their masters of science in engineering, open to all comers. He took a seat at the back of the auditorium and settled in to watch.

Rosemary—his Rosemary, not that she had ever let him claim her as his own—found him there an hour later, and slid into the empty seat next to him. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “Do you know how badly these old buildings bounce around the locator signals? I might never have found you.”

In response, Elias only gestured at the stage. The ceremony had almost finished, and he had not yet heard the name he was expecting.

“Charles Trevor!” The announcer read off. A young man approached the stage for his diploma, and as he was accepting it, “Marya Vologina-Epps!”

Elias watched the young woman approach the stage, feeling strange and displaced and remarkably proud of this young woman he had never met. He joined the crowd in polite applause, not quite daring to join the other Rosemary and herDmitri in their hooting and hollering. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that his Rosemary’s mouth had dropped open, that her eyes were fixed on the young woman currently crossing the stage, with her pale brown skin and her dark cloud of curls and a smile, oh, that smile, so very much like Rosemary’s own.

“How…?”

Elias tapped her arm and pointed towards where the other Rosemary and Dmitri were sitting.He watched Rosemary take them in, the way they leaned towards one another, even as they applauded their daughter. The mass of curls, the schlubby sweater, the sense of joy, of contentment this alternate version of themselves gave off. At his side, Rosemary stiffened, perhaps with anger, and Elias put a restraining hand on her arm.

“Be good,” he said quietly. “You know we should not disturb them if we can avoid it.”

“I just… look at her!” Rosemary’s voice was thick with thinly-veiled contempt. “That outfit? In public?”

“I do not think she is wearing any makeup, either,” said Elias, amused.

Rosemary made an irritated hissing noise and glared at him, as if to say “I know you are trying to goad me and I will not take the bait.” Elias merely smirked down at her.

Rosemary sighed, and glanced at the pair again. “You would think that she would at least have had the sense not to shack up with you,” she muttered.

Elias leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “Oh, it is not ‘shacking up,’ as you put it. They are married.”

Rosemary turned to look at Elias, appalled. If she noticed how very close this brought her face to his, there was no indication of it; Elias, on the other hand, found himself wanting to kiss her indignation away. So he did, simply leaning those few inches closer, pressing his lips to hers, an indulgence they could not risk in the world they had come from, an attachment that neither of them could admit to.

Rosemary’s mouth remained a firm line under his for a moment, and then she sighed and relaxed into the kiss. “Intolerable man,” she muttered when he finally lifted his mouth from hers.

“You tolerate me quite well, Rosie,” Elias replied in a gentle, teasing tone. “You just do not like to admit it.”

Rosemary huffed and turned away from him. The graduation ceremony was drawing to a close, and Elias thought that it would be best if the two of them were gone before Dmitri and the other Rosemary got up to leave. He certainly would not be able to restrain Rosemary, if she took it in her mind to fight her alternate self.

Rosemary’s thoughts seemed to be running parallel to his; she took him by the hand and stood up. “Come on. Let's go.”

Elias looked at their hands, the way she'd interlaced her fingers with his, and stood, a little smile making its way to his face. “Have you found anything interesting for Cutter?”

“No. They seem to be… less advanced than we are.” She swallowed hard, not bothering to mention the annoyance that Cutter would most likely meet this revelation with. “We do, however, have four hours until the return trip, and as far as I can tell, cash here is virtually indistinguishable from what I've got on hand. Worked in vending machines, at least, so it’ll probably pass muster with a hotel.”

“…I see. Are the hotels not busy with graduation visitors?”

“The big ceremony was yesterday. Almost everyone is off campus by now.”

“Ah.”

“I thought we could get a hotel room for a few hours. Get some rest before we have to face Cutter with a failure.”

By now they'd made their way out of the building and were halfway across campus. “That sounds an imminently reasonable course of action,” said Elias, his eyes still drifting from time to time to the tight grip Rosemary had on his hand.

“He's not the same in this world,” Rosemary said finally.

“Who?”

“Cutter. He’s... different, here. Still Matthew Newman.”

“I see.”

“And it seems as if Goddard isn't nearly as far along as it is for us,” she said, her voice stiff.

“Well, he did not have you, ruling his labs with an iron fist.”

Rosemary shot him a scornful look. “You really think she wouldn’t have taken that job if offered it?”

Elias shrugged. “I do not know. But if she is not the sort of person who would seek employment with Goddard Futuristics, perhaps that explains the two of us being… well…”

“What I want to know is how we even MET.”

“I had hair.”

“So?”

“So chances are the Volgograd meltdown either did not happen, or I was removed from the vicinity before it became a problem.”

“I don't see how that leads to the two of them meeting.” Rosemary continued to put a careful distance between her and their alternate selves with her words, one that Elias was hard-pressed to accept. He _wanted_ to believe that a world where they had found one another without Goddard’s assistance, a world where they had married and made a child together, was not so far removed from their own. Wanted to believe that it was only one or two small changes that had caused the ripple effects they saw before them.

He pressed onwards. “Put us both in the same scientific field…”

This got him a speculative look from Rosemary. “You think we met while working?”

“Did you not seek me out because I reminded you of what you might have become, suka?” Elias teased her gently, leaning his shoulder briefly against hers.

Rosemary rolled her eyes. “ _Cutter_ sought you out because Dr. Stukov brought you up as a valuable acquisition. I had very little to do with it aside from making certain he knew we could use a good virologist.”

But her fingers squeezed more tightly around his own, and he gave in to the urge to lift their clasped hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the back of hers as they walked.

Four hours later, they were back in their own world, doing their best to leave that vision of an alternate life out of their debriefing. But as much as he tried, Elias could not get that vision of their alternate selves and the daughter they had created out of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU is [Reckless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119301/chapters/52794085), where they're warring academics and accidentally a baby after a one-night-stand at a conference.


End file.
